Legal words and their usage: Accused to Juvenile

1. A

• Accused: a person charged with an offence. The accused was produced before the magistrate within twenty-four hours of arrest.
• Accomplice: a person who joins another in committing a crime. The driver of the getaway car was held to be an accomplice in the robbery.
• Arrest: taking a person into legal custody. The police arrested him on a warrant issued by the court.
• Amendment: a formal change in a law or document. The Forty-second Amendment added “socialist” and “secular” to the Preamble.
• Adjournment: postponing a hearing to another day. The judge refused a third adjournment and directed the counsel to argue the case.
• Award: the decision of an arbitrator. The arbitrator’s award went in favour of Dada Abdulla.
• Arbitration: settling a dispute by a private judge chosen by the parties. Gandhi persuaded both merchants to refer their dispute to arbitration.
• Agreement: a promise or set of promises forming consideration for each other. Every contract is an agreement, but every agreement is not a contract.
• Approver: an accomplice who is pardoned on condition of giving full and true evidence against the others. The approver’s evidence needs corroboration before the court acts on it.

2. B and C

• Bail: release of an accused from custody on security that he will appear. The court granted him bail on a personal bond of Rs. 50,000.
• Bench: the judge or judges hearing a case. A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court heard the reference.
• Bond: a written promise to pay or to do something, often with a penalty. He executed a bond to keep the peace for one year.
• Breach of contract: failure to perform a contractual promise. The supplier’s failure to deliver the goods on time was a breach of contract.
• Consent: agreement to the same thing in the same sense; consent is free when not caused by coercion, undue influence, fraud, misrepresentation or mistake. Consent obtained at knife-point is not free consent.
• Contract: an agreement enforceable by law. A contract with a minor is void.
• Contempt (of court): conduct that disobeys or lowers the authority of a court. Ignoring the injunction, he was punished for contempt of court.
• Counterclaim: a claim by the defendant against the plaintiff in the same suit. The tenant filed a counterclaim for the cost of repairs.
• Court: a body that administers justice. The civil court has no jurisdiction to try a criminal case.
• Counsel: a lawyer who advises or argues for a party. Senior counsel appeared for the State.
• Compromise: settlement of a dispute by mutual concession. The suit ended in a compromise recorded by the court.
• Coercion: committing or threatening an act forbidden by law to make a person agree. A promise extracted by threatening to burn a house is obtained by coercion.
• Claim: a demand for something as of right. The insurer rejected his claim for the stolen car.

3. D and E

• Damages: money awarded for loss caused by a wrong or breach. The court awarded Rs. 2 lakh as damages for the breach.
• Decree: the formal expression of a civil court’s decision on the rights of the parties. The decree for possession was executed by the court bailiff.
• Defamation: harming a person’s reputation by words or signs (BNS s. 356). The newspaper was sued for defamation over a false report.
• Defendant: the party sued in a civil suit. The defendant denied receiving the loan.
• Defence (also spelt defense): the answer of the accused or defendant to the charge or claim. His defence was that he was elsewhere at the time.
• Document: any matter written or recorded on a substance, including electronic records. The sale deed is the most important document in the case.
• Distress: seizing goods to recover rent or a debt (also, plain hardship). The landlord could not levy distress without a court order.
• Divorce: legal dissolution of a marriage. She was granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty.
• Evidence: oral statements and documents produced to prove facts. There was no evidence to connect the accused with the crime.
• Estoppel: a rule that prevents a person from denying what he earlier represented, when another acted on it. Having let the buyer improve the land as owner, he was barred by estoppel from denying the sale.
• Equity: fairness; rules of justice that soften the strict law. He who seeks equity must do equity.
• Execution: enforcing a decree; also, signing a deed, and carrying out a death sentence. The decree-holder applied for execution of the decree.

4. F to J

• Fraud: deliberate deception to make another enter a contract or suffer loss. The sale was set aside because the buyer had obtained it by fraud.
• Hearsay: evidence of what someone else said, not what the witness saw or heard himself; generally not admissible. “My neighbour told me he saw the accident” is hearsay.
• Homicide: killing of a human being by another. Not every homicide is murder; some is lawful, as in private defence.
• Injunction: a court order forbidding (or requiring) an act. The court granted an injunction restraining the builder from demolishing the wall.
• Insolvency: inability to pay one’s debts. The firm’s insolvency proceedings were filed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
• Instrument: a formal legal document such as a deed, cheque or promissory note. A cheque is a negotiable instrument.
• Issue: a point in dispute framed by the court; also, children. The court framed three issues for trial. He died without issue.
• Judgment: the statement of the grounds of a court’s decision. The judge reserved judgment after hearing both sides.
• Jurisdiction: the power of a court to hear a case. The suit was returned because the court lacked territorial jurisdiction.
• Jurisprudence: the science or philosophy of law. Austin’s jurisprudence treats law as the command of the sovereign.
• Jury (the syllabus prints “juri”): a body of citizens sworn to decide facts. The jury acquitted Nanavati, but the High Court set the verdict aside.
• Justice: fair treatment according to law; also a title of a judge. Justice delayed is justice denied.
• Juvenile: a person below eighteen years. The juvenile was sent to the Juvenile Justice Board, not to an ordinary criminal court.

How this is examined

Six words, any five (80-mark paper), or eight words (100-mark paper). From this half of the list: contract, jurisdiction, arrest, fraud (January 2026); arrest, divorce, evidence, fraud (June 2025); accused, coercion, equity, hearsay, issue (June 2025, 100); juvenile (January 2026, 100). The other half of the list is in the next note.